The Pushcart War

Imagine you were packing for a trip to somewhere with no books, bookstores, or internet and you had room in your suitcase for only ten books. Imagine that you knew you might never return. What ten books would you bring with you?

I can't tell you what my one favorite book ever is; I just can't decide. But I can tell you about the ten books I would take on my hypothetical trip. So, here they are, more or less in the order that I originally read them.

Number 1: The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill (1964)

"It all began when Morris the Florist was pitched headfirst into a pickle barrel." Thus reads the inscription at the top of a medium green paperback, lovingly repaired with scotch tape. I first encountered this novel in a crate of hand-me-down books when I was about nine years old. My copy was published in 1978, the forward is dated 1996, and the first three or four times I read it, I wasn't sure if it was fiction or non.

I was enchanted by this satire that describes a war between the pushcarts and the trucks of New York City. Unusual for a young-adult novel, almost all of the characters (and all the main characters) are adults. Furthermore, the action centers around a group who are engaged in a guerrilla war, even if the targets are trucks, and not people. Anti-authoritarian by temperament and raised in a household that revered political activism, I was hooked.

You will love this book because: it is often funny, its champions are the little guys, and it perfectly captures the New York dialect and cadence in all its variations.

This book will appeal particularly to people like Matt, who know that young adult books are way too good to be reserved only for young adults.